Copyright & Permissions Policy

Images on the Washington County Heritage Online (WCHO) web site are based on original historic photographs. These photographs are held by multiple participating cultural institutions in Washington County, Oregon. To publish any of the photographs on the WCHO web site, please contact the institution that owns the photograph for further information:

Frequently Asked Questions

  • How do I cite a photograph from the WCHO web site?
    The exact format of your citation will depend on which citation style you are using. Purdue University's OWL guide provides up-to-date instructions for citations in the most common styles. The basic MLA (8th ed.) format for citing a photograph from this site is:
     
    PhotographerLastName, PhotographerFirstName. Title of the photograph. Date. Name of the Institution that owns the original photograph, City where the Institution is located, Oregon. http://www.washingtoncountyheritage.org. Accessed Date.

    Information that you do not know, such as the name of the photographer, generally should be left blank. For example, if you wanted to cite this photograph, "Cyrus Walker, Lucy Maria Tanner Walker, and Susan Tanner portrait", the citation in MLA format would be:
     
    Cyrus Walker, Lucy Maria Tanner Walker, and Susan Tanner portrait. Circa 1860s. Pacific University Archives, Forest Grove, Oregon. http://www.washingtoncountyheritage.org. Accessed Jan 2019.
     
  • How do I get a higher-resolution version of the images on this site? 
    Images than have been scanned relatively recently (i.e. since 2020 or so) often have 300-400 d.p.i. versions available within this web site. They can be found simply by "clicking through" on an image until the largest available version appears on your screen. You can then:  (on PCs) left-click the image and select "Save As"; or (on iOS)  control-click (hold down the Control key and click) or two-finger click (if enabled in settings) on the image, then, select "Save Image As..."

    Images that were scanned earlier (i.e. roughly 2011-2019), or which have copyright restrictions, may only have low-resolution versions available through this site. If you need an image that falls into this category, we recommend contacting the institution that owns the original image, as they would be the main contact for creating and supplying new high-resolution scans. 
     
  • Are there any usage fees for reproducing the photographs?
    Each institution within WCHO sets its own policies for usage fees. Please see the contacts above for more information.
     
  • Are these photographs still protected by copyright?
    For most of the photographs on this site, copyright will still be in force until 70 years after the death of the photographer, or if the photographer is unknown, until 120 years after the photograph was taken. See this chart for more information (please note that most WCHO photographs count as "unpublished works").
     
  • Do I need to get permission from the copyright holder to reproduce the photographs?
    In some cases, yes. Some uses count as "fair use" and do not require permission. For some guidelines on what counts as fair use, see the U.S. Copyright Office Statement on Fair Use, or the Stanford Fair Use site.
     
  • Who owns the copyright to the photographs?
    While WCHO institutions own the physical photographs, recordings, and documents that are reproduced on this site, they may or may not own the copyright to them. Copyright usually belongs to the original creator: in other words, the photographer, the author, the artist, or the company who created the original work. If that person/company is dead or defunct, then the copyright may be held by their estate, or by another company that acquired their intellectual property. There are some exceptions to this rule, notably in the case of "works made for hire." WCHO institutions may be able to assist in determining who the copyright holder is.
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